


The Wrath Of A Winter's Cold

by ImogenSmiley



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: 52 Week Oneshot Challenge, Canon Compliant, Cold, Feeling poorly, M/M, Oneshot, Post canon, Post-Canon Events, Sick Lio Fotia, Sickfic, Unwell, Wintertime, poorly, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImogenSmiley/pseuds/ImogenSmiley
Summary: The winter had never been something that the Burnish were too preoccupied with. They seldom had to prepare to carry extra weight in thermals. The promare kept them warm.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Kudos: 75





	The Wrath Of A Winter's Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Another week, another oneshot! I am so glad I just about managed to get this piece out as I was concerned I wouldn't manage! I'm milking a favourite convention of mine: the sickfic! I hope you enjoy reading it!

The winter had never been something that the Burnish were too preoccupied with. They seldom had to prepare to carry extra weight in thermals, as the promare kept them warm.

However, when the cold months finally ensnared Promepolis, the recovering former Burnish population found themselves stuck; many found themselves being admitted to the local emergency room with scalding fevers, while they trembled, feeling immense cold. They all found themselves being housed in one ward, which found itself being repurposed. The temperature inside was sweltering, and hospital staff were having to take shorter shifts when seeing to those admitted. This twisted form of pneumonia was sending many doctors into states of uncertainty. With their limited medical knowledge on the Burnish and the nomadic community’s lack of written resources on their medical history was a worrisome experience.

They were having to call specialists from far and wide in order to gain insight. Perhaps somebody would be able to find a record of a breakout like this somewhere? Perhaps members of the Burnish community that hadn’t been stricken by the illness would be able to shed light on what could be done to help those in the hospital.

On the other side of the city from the hospital, where baffled medical professionals sat, was the Headquarters for Burning Rescue. The small team had gained three experienced and adaptable recruits, they had passed every test thrown their way in the short period after they offered to help; experienced in keeping a level head when surrounded by flames; the three former members of Mad Burnish’s Top Brass, Guiera, Meis, and Lio: repaying their debt to society as the tabloids called it, still hoping to lay a few digs into the oppressed people even after all of the abuse they endured.

Each of the three new members were nursing a soup that Lio had made using plant roots and some herbs, wrinking their noses at the taste, but knocking flasks of it back as quickly as they could. In being alone, and on the run for as long as the triad had, before they joined and took over the organisation, the trio were used to attempting to conserve warmth, and used some very hot and foul tasting plants to ward off illnesses that could have killed them when they were moving from place to place, sleeping roughly in the suburbs and surrounding woodlands.

They each made the broth in a similar way, but Lio had the best knack for cookery out of the three. After the Burnish were allowed the opportunity to assimilate back into society, the former Mad Burnish Leader, had taken up cookery, volunteering in the aid to help people worse off than himself. In learning how to prepare food that was as delicious as it was nutritious, he had adopted a fondness for spices, thus adding a different type of heat to the scalding soup.

They refused to get sick, and with the illness being compared around the grapevine as having the debilitating power of “a hundred cases of pneumonia”, the three young men were mortified, and desperate.

All remedies, conventional and not, were being consumed with the same fear as ovr the counter medication. Huffing olbus oil tissues, and drinking whiskey with honey and the zest of a lemon, consuming flask after flask of the root broth and only eating food when it was piping hot. They couldn’t fall ill.

They had too much to do, too many people to help.

At night, they were returning to Guiera and Meis’ shared flat, and the trio would inhabit the shared living room and kitchen, not wanting to infect their bedroom with potential contaminants. Instead, they turned on the appliances, heated the room to the maximum power of the thermostat. They wrapped themselves in thermals, nursing their broth.

It was harder, however, to maintain their temperature whilst at work, fighting and dousing fires. Their skin was burned and blistered, scarred and scaly from trysts with infernos, but still, they risked infecting and hurting their searing skin, to remain layered up and together. They couldn’t get sick. It was bad enough when Lio had initially been hospitalised when the promare left. And that was in the heat of the summer. Almost six months had passed and there the Burnish were once more, desperate to stay together, to stay well. They feared death at the hands of illness, more than they had feared death at the hands of Freeze Force: a prolonged experience was harder to escape than the range of a bullet.

It was Galo who realised that the illness was getting more and more publicity in both the public and private eyes of Promepolis. The former Burnish were more afraid than Galo had ever seen them, and he feared for the safety of his new found friends, allies and colleagues each day. Eventually, the plucky blue haired man followed his colleagues back to a single apartment.

He had been mortified to see them hunkered down beneath blankets and thermals. Winter had barely arrived, and they were already under so many blankets, huddled together, trembling. He’d excused himself immediately, but had snuck medication, teas, remedies, incense and hand warmers into the locker beside his, belonging to Lio Fotia.

“You didn’t need to do that, Galo,” he’d said, the next morning as the pair nursed coffees.

Lio liked his sweet, once he’d had a vanilla latte, that was it for him. Galo, on the other hand, preferred a good old fashioned cappuccino. They had sachets of each staff member’s drink of choice lining the shelves in the cabinet, so they could drink to their heart’s content. They needed to be awake to work in emergency services, after all.

“I did, Lio. I saw you three last night. If you’re trying to ward it off, whats a few more tricks?”

“We would never get sick, Galo. Anything we could do to avoid being in one place too long was enough before. We could never afford to get sick.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trivialise it.”

“Please, you speak kinder words than those in the newspapers, Galo.”

They paused, each drinking the remnants of his coffee.

“Maybe we’re not used to getting sick. Perhaps it’s like before, but with everyone, we’re feeling it, like I did.”

“What do you mean, Lio?”

“Remember, Galo? When the promare left, I was in hospital. Maybe illness is catching up with all of us. I haven’t heard of anyone dying from this mysterious sickness. Maybe it really is just that? I can only speculate.”

“It would make sense, but you, surely, should have been much worse then, back then.”

Lio hummed, taking Galo’s hand in his own, “We can only hope that the doctors work it out.”

“I’m sure it will be a bizarre anomaly. They’ll probably develop a vaccine to prevent it spreading soon.”

“I hope so.”

“I hope so, too.”

“But,” Lio said, gazing up at the taller man, “If I do end up in hospital, promise you’ll visit me.”

“Of course, they won’t be able to pull me out of the ward.”

They laughed, but held onto each other’s hands, not wanting to lose their grip on each other. They could feel each other, their warmth, their weight. All was well in that moment; they couldn’t guarantee it for the next.


End file.
